Wednesday, December 26, 2007

100-Mile Trail Run Training

Training is going well for my sixth (in a row) Rocky Raccoon 100-mile trail run. The list of "who's in" is filling up, and it's been updated and color-coded to show who's run 5 or 10 of these crazy things. I'm number 168 on the list, by the way. Here's the list of veterans, who have finished multiple times at this race.

What's really exciting about this year's Rocky Raccoon, is that at least 5 Trail Nerds will be running in the race. Kyle, Gabe, Gary, John, and me. Also, there will be some Nerds like Rick and Mike pacing. And other good Missouri and Kansas Runners will be there: Tony Clark (who's riding down with me), Dann Fisher (who I've run with before at Rocky), and Bill Niktakis (a SLUG from St Louis). It should be a fun trip, with Gary and Tony in the car with me. I drove alone, last year.

Between now and then, I have a lot of training happening, and several of us will run 50K training runs on the weekends, including the annual Fat Ass Run at Wallace State Park, near Cameron, Missouri, on New Year's Day. I'm going to run "long" this Saturday and Sunday, too, with a break on Monday. I like my highest mileage week to be one month out from the 100-miler.

Last year, this race 'bout killed me. I started the race with a bad cold, and ended up having a tough time from mile 78 to 100. You can read about it here. My time was still under 25 hours, though. (My fastest time at this race is 22-hours and 4 minutes). My strategy is always to "run to survive," and if I'm feeling okay on that particular day, I'll do well.

Why do I do a "Hundred" so early in the year? The main reason: it keeps my training on-track through the Winter months.

Followers

About Me

I find ways to enjoy life as much as I can. Also, life's too short to treat people poorly.
I'm into long runs in the park, consuming salt, popping blisters,
eating roadkill & tree bark, and burying whiners in shallow, unmarked
graves. I also enjoy designing trail race courses that would make the
Marquis de Sade blush.
A fun time for me would include banging muddy shoes together, setting
broken bones with a machinist's vise, and duct-taping-down any part of my
body that is bleeding or just flopping-about uselessly.
What helps me to be an active trailrunner and grandpa?
My secret:
1) Daily sponge baths with bovine stem cells;
2) Copious amounts of delicious & nutritious homebrewed beer; and
3) My secret elixir...Bicarbonate of Figleaf.